And because I’m playing catch up…
…I only just got around to reading Andy Duncan’s “Zora and the Zombie“, from SciFiction, which is a very cool story about writer Zora Neale Thurston’s encounter with zombies in Haiti. I’m going to re-read it later in the year, but at the moment I think it starts really well, but am less confident about the back half of it. I also just read Jay Lake’s “The Rose Egg” from the first issue of Postscripts, which has to do with nanotech, graffiti, gangs and courage. Again, I really liked it, though I couldn’t escape the feeling that Lake handled the story’s voice more confidently as it progressed (though that may just have been my becoming accustomed to the voice as I read). Another one to re-read. The first issue of Postscripts also has a very good Gene Wolfe story, “Prize Crew”, which you should check out when the magazine hits the stands. What else? Um, George Guthridge’s “Nine Whispered Opinions Regarding the Alaskan Secession” is a fascinating story experiment that I think I was just too tired to completely appreciate on first reading, but some pieces of it are wonderful. It’s also a good case of maybe telling too much about something. I didn’t really think of the story as an experiment until I read Guthridge’s postscript describing how he came to write it. Doesn’t make it any less of a story, but … I’d also agree with Matthew Cheney’s point that James Stoddard’s admittedly interesting, entertaining and worthwhile “The Battle of York” is too long. It felt like it needed to be tighter to me.

The cd of the moment…
…on my Walkman is Amy Winehouse’s debut, Frank, which is really good. She sounds like a jazz singer, but doesn’t sing jazz at all. It’s smart, sassy and sometimes funny. To be honest, one or two of the lyrics made me a feel a little older than I’d prefer, but, hey, that’s what happens. If you ever wondered what Sarah Vaughan might sound like if she’d been born in 1984, Frank might give you an idea. You can hear samples at her website.

Got home today to find the first advance copy of both the Australian and the US editions of The Locus Awards, which was quite cool. They have different covers (both by the supremely talented Michael Whelan)and different internal designs, and look wonderful in their own way. I couldn’t be prouder of this book, and finally getting to see the finished product makes all of the work worthwhile. This is the good part! Many thanks to Stephanie Smith and her supremely talented co-workers at HarperSydney and to Diana Gill and her fantastic team at HarperNewYork. Now, go buy it!

The first review for the Locus anthology…
I’m fairly sure it’s ok to do this. I just got a copy of the first review of The Locus Awards, a starred review from the American Library Association’s trade journal, Booklist. It’s not bad at all.

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Booklist, July 2004
**** The Locus Awards: 30 Years of the Best in SF and Fantasy
No surprise, this is an excellent collection, including many of the best sf stories of the last 30 years, culled from the winners of awards for short fiction bestowed by readers of Locus, the trade monthly of the sf and fantasy field. The selections are presented by decade, and the 1990s stories, from Terry Bisson’s hilarious, accurately titled “Bears Discover Fire” to Bruce Sterling’s futuristic trust network in “Maneki Neko”, hold their own with ’70s classics like “The Death of Doctor Island”, Gene Wolfe’s look at the future of psychotherapy, and ’80s evergreens including Ursula Le Guin’s “The Day before the Revolution”, about the founder of the revolutionary movement in her novel The Dispossessed (1974); John Varley’s “The Persistence of Vision”, on sight and its pitfalls; and Connie Willis’ “Even the Queen”, which proves that feminism can have a sense of humor. If the newest, post-2000 stories are too new to be classics, they verify the promise of growth in the field; see Ted Chiang’s “Hell Is the Absence of God”, for instance, and Neil Gaiman’s creepy-sweet, almost ghost story, “October in the Chair”.

YA/M: Some sex and violence, but these are some of the best stories in the field..

And next…

For all that the list on the side of the blog says that I’m knee-deep in New Crobuzon, the truth is that I’m really starting to knuckle down and get short fiction reading done. I’ve got five months to get two ‘year’s bests’ finished, and will probably have the first really serious discussions about contents in late August when I’m in Oakland (we’ve already got an evolving short list in place), so I need to get through all of the stuff that’s been tumbling through the post office box and arriving in email.

That means about five issues of Asimov’s and F&SF before I get to the various anthologies and collections and such that are in the office. With that in mind, I just read James Stoddard’s “The Battle of York” from the July F&SF, which I liked but didn’t find quite as wonderful as Matthew Cheney did. I did, however, love Bradley Denton’s novella “Sergeant Chip”, from the September F&SF . I promise to say something intelligent about it shortly, but consider this an official head’s up: check it out.